Smart Home Blog

According to LinuxDevices.com at least two large online retailers are selling Nokia’s 770 Internet Tablet for $140 (originally it was priced at $400!). It’s really amazing price because some universal remote such Philips Pronto or Nevo are much expensive (as you may know Nokia770 can be used as control panel for home automation system Plutohome and for music streamer SlimServer).

That news is good for all folks who decided to use Nokia770 to control their homes using Plutohome. Together with Plutohome developer Christian Miron we modified SDL Orbiter to have possibility run it on Nokia770. Also, I created a simple Maemo application to handle the Orbiter easier from Nokia770 UI.

The latest (and mostly stable) version of Plutohome Orbiter for Nokia770 can be found here (os2006 and os2007 Hacker Edition). Also, you may try the Orbiter on your N800 as well.

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Yesterday I created a ARMEL package to make Orbiter installation on Nokia770 easier. It’s just a draft version. So, don’t hesitate to send me bug report by email or submit it to the Maemo Traker. Orbiter works also on N800. So, you have a choice between 770 or N800.

The Obiter package can be downloaded here: os2006, os2007. To start use Nokia770/N800 as Plutohome Orbiter, please, read this brief howto.

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MythTV has good GUI. Using it you can easily define any options, schedule recording or view already recorded files. But web interface is also might be useful. Mythweb offers you access to the MythTV options, schedule and recorded data via web. Just type following URL in your browser:

your.core.ip/mythweb

In my case I got error message:

Directory index forbidden by rule

It happened because package mythweb was installed but directory /var/www/mythweb was empty. I removed mythweb package (it was removed also pluto-mythtv-plugin)

apt-get remove mythweb

and installed it again together with pluto-mythtv-plugin

apt-get install mythweb pluto-mythtv-plugin

After rebooting the core I accessed to the MythTV web interface.

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Plutohome offers a way to trigger sunrise or sunset event and do specified action at that time. To use that feature you have to specify longitude and latitude on the Wizard :: Basic Info :: Installation Plutohome contains predefined values for many places. If you didn’t find your city you can choose some nearest place or type longitude and latitude directly. After that you have to add a new event handler - Wizard :: Events handler :: Respond to event. To create a new hadler you need just type appropriate description, choose Sunrise or Sunset even from the drop down list and press ‘Add’. After that you’ll able to attach one or more devices and choose a desired command for each of them.

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Here is an interesting A/V device - HDHomeRun Networked Digital TV Tuner. It allows to you watch over-the-air digital TV from all computers in your home. HDHomeRun has two tuners. So you’ll able to record/watch multiple channels at once.

HDHomeRun supports major DVR features:

• Pause, rewind, fast-forward live TV.
• Record all your favorite TV shows by name.
• Fully integrated 14-day TV guide.

Additionally, HDHomeRun can be integrated with Windows Media Center, MythTV - DVR for Linux, SnapStream BeyondTV - DVR for Windows, SageTV - DVR for Windows, MediaPortal - DVR for Windows, GB-PVR - DVR for Windows, Pluto - Home automation & media system, VLC - Multi-platform media viewer, TSReader - MPEG-2 transport stream analysis.

The HDHomeRun Networked Digital TV Tuner is tagged at $169.95 and available on DVRupgrade.

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